Iowa Poll: Most place blame on employers who hire undocumented immigrants, not the workers

The arrest of an Iowa farm worker in the death of Mollie Tibbetts has raised questions about the suspect's legal status and the employment verification system.
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Gaps in the U.S.-Mexico border fence like this one near Jacumba, Calif., just east of San Diego, appear in places along the nearly 2,000-mile border, especially where the terrain begins to get rough.(Photo: Nick Oza/USA TODAY Sports)

Iowans place more blame on employers who hire undocumented immigrants than on the workers, according to a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.

The poll shows 63 percent of Iowans blame employers who hire people in the United States illegally. Sixteen percent blame the workers, and 21 percent are not sure.

The poll was conducted just weeks after a man identified by authorities as an undocumented immigrant was charged with murdering Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old University of Iowa student whose disappearance gained nationwide attention. The arrest added fuel to the ongoing national debate over illegal immigration, and several politicians highlighted the suspect's immigration status when commenting on her death.

The Iowa Poll asked state residents the same question more than a decade ago: "Who do you blame more when illegal immigrants are found working in Iowa — the workers or the employers who hire them?"

The latest poll shows a jump of 7 percentage points in Iowans blaming immigrants, up from 9 percent in January 2007. Those blaming employers decreased 20 percentage points, down from 83 percent in 2007, while those without an opinion increased 13 percentage points, up from 8 percent.

Jacob Vigdor, a professor of public policy and governance at the University of Washington, said the jump in Iowans unsure about the question complicates any straightforward argument of rising anti-immigrant sentiment.

"The fact that the majority of this movement is from the category of 'blame the employer' to 'not sure who to blame' — that doesn't make it quite so simple a story," he said.

Emily Williams, a 34-year-old nurse in Lytton who is a registered Republican, is among those who place blame on the workers. She said employers have a responsibility to vet potential workers and should be penalized if they’re negligent. But employers also need more help to do proper background checks, she said.

Williams said the focus should be on immigrants who knowingly choose to lie in order to work in the United States.

“Personal responsibility is something that we have to place on ourselves,” she said. “If you misrepresent yourself or take a job knowing that you’re not who you say you are, or that you lied about your history or your background or any of your information, I think that’s on you.”

Williams added that she would support legislation that makes it easier for immigrants to come legally to the United States.

Floyd Dickerson, a 75-year-old retiree in Oskaloosa and a registered Democrat, places blame on employers. He said those who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants should go to prison.

“It’s really simple: Don’t hire them,” he said. “If they don’t have a job, they’re not going to stay.”

The statewide poll, conducted Sept. 17-20 by Selzer and Co. of Des Moines, surveyed 801 Iowa adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The margin of error is larger for subgroups of respondents.

Across party affiliations, majorities blame those who employ undocumented workers more than they do the workers. Seventy percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans blame the employers.

The same is true of self-identified Trump voters — 64 percent of them blame employers over workers.

But Republicans are more likely to place blame on workers (32 percent) than are independents (13 percent) or Democrats (6 percent).

Tibbetts went missing after going out for a jog in her hometown of Brooklyn and her body was found in a field in rural Poweshiek County five weeks later.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, charged with first-degree murder in her death, has pleaded not guilty.

Bahena Rivera had worked for several years at an Iowa dairy farm. His employers said he provided false information to show he could legally work in the country. They said they planned in the future to use the federal E-Verify system for employee background checks.

Twenty-four states require at least some businesses to use the system, but Iowa is not one of them. Critics note that the system can be gamed by identity fraud and sometimes incorrectly flags legal workers.

Rob Tibbetts, Mollie Tibbetts’ father, wrote a column this month demanding that his daughter’s death not be used to advance an immigration agenda.

Despite that attention, Vigdor, the Washington professor, said the rising ambiguity in respondents' answers — with more than a fifth saying they were unsure whom to blame — "suggests to me that this issue is a little bit less at the forefront of people’s minds than it used to be."

About the poll:

The Iowa Poll, conducted September 17-20 for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 801 Iowans ages 18 or older, including 555 likely voters in the 2018 general election for governor and other offices. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cell phone numbers supplied by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent census data.

Questions based on the sample of 801 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error. Questions based on likely voters in the 2018 general election have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to the Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.